The protesters assembled on the Mall yesterday with a plan to voice their less-than-generous views about a certain president and his vice president. They would form a human chain to spell out I-M-P-E-A-C-H, even including an exclamation point.

But only 150 or so showed up, far fewer than the 1,000 organizers had hoped for. As their photo opportunity approached, they knew they’d be lucky to spell I-M-P.

“We’re going to have to scrap the big plan,” George Ripley, the protest’s leader, announced. He advised his allies to rearrange everyone. They would still form I-M-P-E-A-C-H-!, he insisted, only on a tad smaller scale.

“A nightmare,” a pony-tailed confederate said, shaking his head.

Maybe they did want to spell “imp” and it was simply a Dennis Kucinich rally? By the way, I’m offended by the use of the word “confederate” being applied to a hippie/nutcase.

The apparent apathy puzzled Jaime Todaro, a software writer who attended as a member of Code Pink, a group that has been especially active in waging war protests lately. No less than four peace medallions dangled from her ears.

When the subject of protesting the war comes up, she said, her friends and neighbors in Rockville express interest. “But they always seem to have something else to do; their own lives seem to be more important,” she said. “This is the most important thing I could be doing today.”

Well, see most Americans don’t think it is good to be doing this that support al-Qaeda. We would rather volunteer our time to help those in our community, or those serving in the Armed Forces who are fighting our actual enemy – not the ones in our imagination.

The al-Qaeda leader who is thought to have devised the plan for the July 7 suicide bombings in London and an array of terrorist plots against Britain has been captured by the Americans.

Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a former major in Saddam Hussein’s army, was apprehended as he tried to enter Iraq from Iran and was transferred this week to the “high-value detainee programme” at Guantanamo Bay.

Abd al-Hadi, 45, was regarded as one of al-Qaeda’s most experienced, most intelligent and most ruthless commanders. Senior counter-terrorism sources told The Times that he was the man who, in 2003, identified Britain as the key battleground for exporting al-Qaeda’s holy war to Europe.

He added that he was a key al-Qaeda paramilitary leader in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, and between 2002 and 2004 led efforts to attack US forces in Afghanistan with terrorist units based in Pakistan.

How do the fact-dodging America Haters squirm out of this one? Apparently there were operational relations between Saddam’s military and al-Qaeda before and after September 11, 2001.

And it seems that this week, it’s always something for me. I had a dentist appointment yesterday (pretty good results considering I hadn’t been in in 2 1/2 years). Now, I need to take my car in for an oil change and get ready to host my Dad who’s stopping in LA on his way to a vacation with his wife.

On May 8, 1991, in a room in the hotel from where I now write – then called the Excelsior but since converted into a ducks-marching-through-the-lobby member of the Peabody chain – Mr. Clinton is alleged to have sexually harassed Paula Jones. His initial refusal to settle the case Ms. Jones brought against him led to depositions, and those depositions eventually led to a young intern in a beret.

And you know the rest: a blue dress, the ham-handed attempt to impeach, hanging chads in Florida, four hijacked airplanes, Afghanistan, “W” landing in his green flight suit, Abu Ghraib, and our continuing, intractable mess in Mesopotamia.

It’s a long way from a sleepy capital city on the banks of the Arkansas River to chaotic sectarian slaughter along the banks of the Euphrates River a mere 10 years later, and a trip that cannot be made with fishing trawler. But apparently, a well-financed political fishing expedition will get you there.

Oh read the whole thing. It is priceless lunacy. This dude is a political science professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. (I guess the main Maryland Campus was too good for him?) Gee, I wonder if his students leave his classes hating America, hating the President and wishing Republicans and US military forces in Iraq were dead? Nah, I’m sure he keeps his personal political beliefs to himself in the classroom. (yeah, right)

I decided a response to Professor Schaller was in order. So I emailed him.

Wow. You have really drunk the Clinton Kool Aid.

How can you possibly weave your tale of the right-wing conspiracy to tie Mrs. Clinton’s land deal schemes in with the attacks of 9/11?

[GP Ed. Note - In my haste and astonishment, I failed to realize that in fact he never mentioned the land deals.... I guess I just assumed they were in his wild tale. My bad. But you get the point!]

You are one twisted soul, my friend.

Now if you were truly intellectually honest, you would admit that in 1997 we only THOUGHT things were honkey-dorey because the Clinton brigade was ignoring the threat posed by an organized, worldwide global Islamic terror movement. Four years later, and after many warnings and failed action by Clinton and his cronies, 3,000 Americans would be killed (not by the Bush Administration) but by a team of warriors from a worldwide global movement to destroy Western democracies.

Clinton let all of us down. So don’t kid yourself that 1997 was some great idyllic Garden of Eden. It was merely a window-dressed time of false economic growth and false sense of security produced by a man-child as President.

Finally, get some real journalistic balls and start reporting on the threat to all of us by the worldwide Islamic terror organizations.

You as a journalist, and I as a gay man, would be the first people beheaded if the Islamists were given the chance.

[GP Ed. Note - Also in my haste, I either promoted or insulted him by labeling him a journalist, rather than columnist/professor. Either way, a liberal professor would be high on bin Laden's chopping block.]

Remember Zach Galligan? Yes you do! He played Billy Peltzer in the 1984 movie Gremlins. That was my favorite movie that year, and that summer I must have seen it 10 times (I swear!). I always thought Zach was kinda cute… but I really loved Gizmo!

Email to Andrew: “I was just wondering why you don’t drive/haven’t driven? Is this a personal choice?”

Andrew’s answer: “It’s a choice the way so many things in life are. I was a nerdy and reclusive teen who had no social life because of repressed homosexuality. I didn’t need to go anywhere that needed a car, and the train station was a twenty-minute walk.”

Let me praise God and thank my Mom for not raising me to be such a victim. I am sooooo glad I don’t go around each corner to find the “Gay Bogeyman” to use as an excuse for every situation in life.

Good heavens. There are a hell of a lot good reasons to cite for not owning a car…. did throwing out the “Gay Card” do anything more than make him look like a whiny victim of the terribles of the world against gays? (Well yes, it also did make my eyes roll.)

Seventy-nine days after President Bush sent Congress a request for emergency war funding for our troops, the House of Representatives has passed disappointing legislation that insists on a surrender date, handcuffs our generals, and contains billions of dollars in spending unrelated to the war.

Last November, the American people voted for a change in strategy in Iraq – and the President listened. Tonight, the House of Representatives voted for failure in Iraq – and the President will veto its bill.

Democrats have forced this process to continue for too long. The President calls on the Senate to quickly pass this legislation so the President can veto it and then work with the Congressional leadership on a clean bill that funds our troops while respecting the judgment of our military commanders and helping ensure the safety of the American people.

Have at it. You all know what I think of this Pelosi-Reid Surrender Strategy.

James E. McGreevey, who resigned the governorship under a cloud of scandal, has a new job teaching law, ethics and leadership at one of New Jersey’s public colleges.

McGreevey is now an “executive in residence” — a combination teaching and consulting post — at Kean University in Union, where he is earning $17,500. The former governor came on board without any announcement on Nov. 1, Kean officials said, and the university makes no mention of his role on its Web site or faculty directory.

Oh I don’t know…. just speculating….. but I think Kean University is getting ripped on the deal by about $17,499.99. Because a penny is just about how much Jim McGreevey knows about ETHICS.

I usually avoid press comment when I’m up here, but I felt so strongly about what Senator Reid said in the last couple of days, that I thought it was appropriate that I come out today and make a statement that I think needs to be made.

I thought his speech yesterday was unfortunate, that his comments were uninformed and misleading. Senator Reid has taken many positions on Iraq. He has threatened that if the President vetoes the current pending supplemental legislation, that he will send up Senator Russ Feingold’s bill to de-fund Iraq operations altogether. Yet only last November, Senator Reid said there would be no cutoff of funds for the military in Iraq. So in less than six months’ time, Senator Reid has gone from pledging full funding for the military, then full funding but with conditions, and then a cutoff of funding — three positions in five months on the most important foreign policy question facing the nation and our troops.

Yesterday, Senator Reid said the troop surge was against the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. That is plainly false. The Iraq Study Group report was explicitly favorable toward a troop surge to secure Baghdad. Senator Reid said there should be a regional conference on Iraq. Apparently, he doesn’t know that there is going to be one next week. Senator Reid said he doesn’t have real substantive meetings with the President. Yet immediately following last week’s meeting at the White House, he said, “It was a good exchange; everyone voiced their considered opinion about the war in Iraq.

“What’s most troubling about Senator Reid’s comments yesterday is his defeatism. Indeed, last week, he said the war is already lost. And the timetable legislation that he is now pursuing would guarantee defeat. Maybe it’s a political calculation. Some Democratic leaders seem to believe that blind opposition to the new strategy in Iraq is good politics.

Senator Reid himself has said that the war in Iraq will bring his party more seats in the next election. It is cynical to declare that the war is lost because you believe it gives you political advantage. Leaders should make decisions based on the security interests of our country, not on the interests of their political party.

Sen. Reid’s response was to say he wasn’t going to engage in “name calling”, but then proceeded to call the Vice President an “attack dog.” I’m wondering if Dr. Leo Spaceman (pronounced “Spi-chemm-in”) has some time on his schedule to check out the capacity of the Senate Majority Leader?

A New Jersey man says he’s alive today thanks to Jason Ray, the UNC Chapel Hill senior and Tar Heels mascot who died last month after he was struck by a vehicle.

Dennis Korzelius has Ray’s liver.

Ray, 21, suffered severe brain injuries when he was hit by an SUV while walking back to his hotel before an NCAA tournament game in New Jersey. He died March 26, leaving organs to five people.

“There is some comfort in knowing that even though your son is gone he’s got his organs supporting five other people’s lives,” Ray’s father, Emmitt Ray, told the Observer on Friday. “They could have all been gone by now. There is some good feeling about that.”

Since Sept. 11, a conspiracy-minded fringe has claimed that American officials plotted the destruction. But when scholars such as Zbigniew Brzezinski accuse our leaders of falsely depicting or hyping a “war on terror” to promote a “culture of fear,” it’s clear that historical revisionism has gone mainstream.

We are at war with a distinct global movement and ideology whose members seek to advance their totalitarian aims through terrorism. Brzezinski is deeply mistaken to mock the notion that we are at war and to suggest that we should adopt “more muted reactions” to acts of terrorism.

A sensible strategy against al-Qaeda and others in its ideological terror network begins with recognizing the scope of the threat they pose. Al-Qaeda and its ilk have a world vision that is comparable to that of historical totalitarian ideologues but adapted to the 21st-century global network.

Is this actually a war? Well, the short answer comes from our enemies. Osama bin Laden’s fatwa of Feb. 23, 1998, was a declaration of war, a self-serving accusation that America had somehow declared war on Islam, followed by a “ruling” to “kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military . . . in any country where it is possible to do it.”

Simply put, our foes have declared their intent to make war, have demonstrated a capability to prosecute war and have laid on us the horrific consequences commensurate with war.

This globalized war has theaters from traditional battlefields in Afghanistan and Iraq to the streets and alleys of cities where al-Qaeda-trained killers lurk. Moreover, this war cannot be won by arms alone; “soft” power matters. In these ways, our current struggle resembles the Cold War. As with the Cold War, we must respond globally. As with the Cold War, ideas matter as much as armaments. And as with the Cold War, this war requires our patience and resolve.

Perhaps the rhetoric of war makes Brzezinski and others uncomfortable. But history teaches that the false comfort of complacency is a dangerous indulgence in the face of a determined enemy.

Chertoff gets it.

More importantly, Bin Ladin gets it. The Islamists plotting American murders on a daily basis do too.

hi. i’m shadow. i’m kind of young to be on the intranets but john-dad is out and i found this neat laptop on the table.

*chews on mouse cord*

anyway, i wanted to say hello. i can’t stay long because john-dad might come home and get mad. and anyway i have to go chew on my brother saxby’s ears and bite his feet until he chases me around the house a bit.

First, let me applaud both the Hypocrite Rights Campaign and Log Cabin (Republicans) for finally (years late!) getting a grip and realizing that some true gay rights progress can be made in the area of Job Discrimination.

The public debate from the gay community on this issue virtually came to a halt while gay activists tried to force gay marriage through the court system, and then having to raise money in order to fight a Constitutional Amendment that will never pass.

So now we are back to a pragmatism and seriousness that the Gay Lobby walked away from many years ago. From Log Cabin website:

Log Cabin Republicans praise the bi-partisan introduction of the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (LLEHCPA) in the U.S. Senate. The legislation would allow local law enforcement agencies to access federal assistance in the investigation and prosecution of hate crimes. Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR) is the lead Republican co-sponsor. The House version was introduced last month. Similar legislation previously passed both the U.S. House and Senate by wide, bi-partisan margins.

“Our strong support for local law enforcement officials and our shared commitment to fighting crime unites us as Republicans,” said Log Cabin President Patrick Sammon. “We all understand the importance of combating violent crime in every community—from the largest cities to the smallest towns. That’s why every Republican lawmaker should support this legislation.”

But here’s a question I have for Log Cabin and the Hypo Rights Campaign — why is “gay marriage” a fundamental question of EQUALITY, but getting fired from your job because you are gay is just mere FAIRNESS?

I felt it would be appropriate to note Patriot’s Day here and express thanks to our first American patriots who took up arms against tyranny. That tradition continues to this day with our brave volunteer patriots going face-to-face against Islamic terrorists throughout the world.

Knife-wielding attackers slit the throats of three people at a Christian publishing house in conservative eastern Turkey yesterday.

The Zirve publishing house, which the Turkish media says is owned by two South Africans, Gert Martinus de Lange and Stephen Smithdorf, had been the target of nationalist protests for allegedly distributing Bibles and proselytising.

Halil Ibrahim Dasoz, the Governor of Malatya, said the authorities were also investigating possible Islamist links, because the method of killing was reminiscent of attacks by the Turkish arm of the militant Islamist group Hezbollah.

Or perhaps the American Leftist Islamist Apologists (ALIA) will proclaim the murdering throat-slitters are misunderstood victims of Bushitler’s foreign policy.

Um wait. I’m really confused here. (not my) Speaker Pelosi and Honest Harry Reid tell me that the Iraqi Theatre has nothing to do with, and never has had anything to with, the War on Terror (WWIII).

So how exactly do they explain spies of Saddam being in the USA before the invasion of Iraq to enforce the countless United Nations Security Council resolutions? (They were just arrested and charged.)

Two Detroit-area men have been charged with spying for Saddam Hussein’s intelligence service, supplying the executed dictator’s regime with information about its enemies in the United States, according to federal court documents unsealed today.

Ghazi Al-Awadi, 78, of Dearborn, allegedly told the Iraqi Intelligence Service in 1997 that he killed his son-in-law because the man belonged to an anti-Hussein political party, court documents said.

Najib Shemami, 59, of Sterling Heights, allegedly provided Iraqi intelligence with information about Iraqi expatriates who might be called upon to guide U.S. troops during the invasion of Iraq and potential political candidates for the new government.

The charges were based on Iraqi intelligence documents captured by U.S. forces in Iraq.

The men are believed to be the first Detroit-area residents to be charged on the basis of such documents, which were authenticated by former members of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.

On Monday, a federal jury in Chicago convicted Sami Latchin, 59, of Des Plaines, Ill., of working as an Iraqi sleeper agent, spying on Iraqi dissidents in the United States. He is facing a possible 40-year prison sentence.

Like so many, both in the U.S. and abroad, in columns, blogs, private conversations and other fora, I’m trying to grapple with yesterday’s events at Virginia Tech. We see the loss of human life and wonder how a human being could murder so many people he didn’t know, shooting his fellow students at random. We have seen such rampages before — and not just in the United State and not just in the past hundred years.

What is it that transforms one human being into a demon setting out to deliberately massacre his fellows? The gunman has been described as a “sullen loner.” But, others have experienced such isolation have not reacted by murder.

. . . it would be satisfying if we could somehow make sense out of this senseless act. . . . And yet it’s in our nature to try to make sense of the things we don’t or even can’t understand. But I’ll tell you something: Searches for reasons and explanations here are going to bring us up empty. The painful fact is that terrible things happen. There are evil people who do evil things. There’s nothing more to it than that. There’s no policy prescription that can make things like this never happen again.

I guess that’s why it troubles me that so many, on both sides of the debate, are already spinning the massacre as proving the need for increased regulation of handguns or greater use of concealed weapons permits. Yes, that is an important debate, but no matter how we change our gun control laws, we will alas likely never succeed in eradicating evil from the human condition.

When Cathy Seipp died last month, I wondered at how unfair it seemed that someone could die so young. Most of yesterday’s victims weren’t even half her age.

What yesterday reminds us is that life is not always fair. That we can’t always make sense of things, much as we wish to.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the Virginia Tech community, particularly to the families of those who lost a loved one. For those who want to find meaning in the universe, yesterday’s massacre presents us with a great challenge. And while one man’s action may cause us to question our faith in humanity, actions of others, like those of Professor Librescu, give us hope for our fellow man.

UP-UPDATE: Check out these two pieces (here and here) on Professor Liviu Librescu (Via Powerline).

UP-UP-UPDATE: In a column which shows a real understanding of the massacre, Charles Krauthammer writes:

Perhaps in the spirit of Obama’s much-heralded post-ideological politics we can agree to observe a decent interval of respectful silence before turning ineffable evil and unfathomable grief into political fodder.

There’s not much to say that isn’t being said by others today. I saw the tragic news when I stepped off a plane in Washington, DC this afternoon. I felt much like I did on 9/11…. shock, horror, disbelief.

My prayers go out to all of the families who will be impacted by this tragedy. It makes my heart ache.

The fish–your child–is bombarded and barely knows it. But the waves contain words like this, which I’ll limit to only one source, the news:

. . . was found strangled and is believed to have been sexually molested . . . had her breast implants removed . . . took the stand to say the killer was smiling the day the show aired . . . said the procedure is, in fact, legal infanticide . . . is thought to be connected to earlier sexual activity among teens . . . court battle over who owns the frozen sperm . . . contains songs that call for dominating and even imprisoning women . . . died of lethal injection . . . had threatened to kill her children . . . said that he turned and said, “You better put some ice on that” . . . had asked Kevorkian for help in killing himself . . . protested the game, which they said has gone beyond violence to sadism . . . showed no remorse . . . which is about a wager over whether he could sleep with another student . . . which is about her attempts to balance three lovers and a watchful fiancé . . .

This is the ocean in which our children swim. This is the sound of our culture. It comes from all parts of our culture and reaches all parts of our culture, and all the people in it, which is everybody…

And there’s more. We forget, those of us who are middle-aged, that we grew up in a time of saner, less sick-making images and sounds.

For instance, the culture of crime only began to explode in the 1960s. We have lived in it for 30 years, and most of us turned out OK. So we think our children will be OK too. But they never had a normal culture against which to balance the newer, sicker one. They have no reference points to the old, boring normality. We assume they know what we know: “This is not right.” But why would they know that? The water in which they swim is the only water they’ve known…

The title of the column: The Culture of Death.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

UPDATE (from GPW): Like Bruce, I don’t have much to say that others have not already said. I read about the situation and wonder that even as civilization advances, evil persists. Despite all our best efforts, we can’t seem to eradicate it from human hearts.